Vladimir Putin, King of All Sport

Vladimir Putin has embraced the sporting life. From flying with wild geese to fishing in icy Siberian waters to playing ice hockey, the Russian president's athletic stunts are well-known, well-documented and well ridiculed. “We don’t want a shirtless man on a horse leading us into [the] … future,” Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the dissident punk collective Pussy Riot, told Stephen Colbert this week.
But as the Brookings Institution’s Clifford Gaddy, an expert on the many facets of Vladimir Putin, points out, there’s nothing accidental about the Russian strongman's carefully crafted, uber-masculine persona. And this week, the King of All Sport has the chance to add another notch to his belt—the ne plus ultra all sporting events, the Olympic Games. That is, if he has managed to whip his country into shape in time.
Putin rides a horse in the foothills of Karatash, Siberia on Feb 25, 2010.

AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Pool

Macho Putin didn’t really begin to blossom until the summer of 2007, says Gaddy, when he and potentate buddy Prince Albert of Monaco spent a Siberian vacation fishing in icy rivers, camping in yurts and excavating ancient imperial fortresses—“real tough-guy stuff.”
Above, Putin fishes in the Yenisey River on Aug. 13, 2007, during his summer vacation with Prince Albert.

AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Presidential Press Service

At the end of the summer, the Russian ruler appeared physically transformed. Gaddy remembers a dinner for Western experts held in Sochi toward the end of the summer. After the meal, Putin surprised the group by inviting them all to his luxurious summer palace for post post-dinner cocktails and to “see the view” from his terrace. “Sure enough, Putin’s just standing there,” Gaddy says. “You’re there within inches of him. And, my God, I could see—I mean, he couldn’t even button his collar! There were veins bulging out of his neck; his arms were really big. I’m not sure he’s kept that same bulk. But I thought, ‘Whoa, this is not Photoshop. This guy is really, really in shape.’”
Above, Putin swims while traveling in the Siberian mountains on Aug. 3, 2009.

AP Photo/ RIA Novosti, Alexei Drizhinin, Pool

That’s when the wheels of the Kremlin press service started rolling, churning out collections of photos (featured on the Kremlin website, of course) of Putin, the Great Outdoorsman—a new and oh-so-obviously staged persona that neatly positioned Putin as an environmental crusader. “That’s how he has explained all of that stuff,” says Gaddy. “You know, ‘That’s why I did the crazy stunt with the cranes. I wanted to draw attention to [the migration problems].’” Putin was saving the animals.
Above, Putin flies a motorized hang glider alongside a Siberian white crane on Sept. 5, 2012.

AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Presidential Press Service

But of course, as Gaddy points out, Putin isn’t just some “namby-pamby friend to the animals”—he’s not going to wear a shirt when he goes horse-back riding. And he’s not going to watch from the back while some other guy crossbows a grey whale.
Above, Putin on a scientific expedition to study grey whales on Aug. 25, 2010.

AP Photo/ RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, pool

There’s a serious point here, explains Gaddy. “As Putin reaches his 60th birthday, it’s very important for him to portray the image of vigor, youth, health, dynamism.” As soon as the Russian electorate—“and they actually do have a voice”—starts thinking, “Oh no, is he going to be another one of those old fogeys that basically ruled us from their death beds in the Soviet era?,” the age of Putin will be over. “It would evoke too many bad memories.”
Putin, who is a judo black belt, trains in St. Petersburg on Dec. 18, 2009.

AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Pool

From the beginning, Putin has been very careful to play up the contrast between him and post-Cold War president Boris Yeltsin, “the stumbling buffoon who made Russia a big disgrace” and who was openly mocked at home and abroad, says Gaddy. And the image of the fit teetotaler certainly diverges from the red-faced ruler with a serious alcohol problem.
Putin prepares for an arm wrestle on Aug. 1, 2011.

AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel, Pool

It’s impossible to imagine the Kremlin’s tightly controlled and scripted press machine would put on this show if Russians didn’t want to see it. “It’s just like how the Washington crowd can be really cynical and sarcastic about all kinds of things that your grassroots politicians do and say,” Gaddy says, “but out there in the heartland, ordinary people might think that’s great.” Likewise, your average Russian is certainly not as cynical about the Kremlin strongman. Sure, the urbane upper-middle class likes to poke fun of Putin’s stunts—but the macho sportsman has real appeal.
Putin in the Siberian mountains on Aug. 3, 2009.

AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, POOL, File

Even President Barack Obama has weighed in on Putin’s bizarrely earnest machismo. “My sense is that’s part of his shtick back home politically as wanting to look like the tough guy,” Obama said in an interview with NBC Thursday. But vanity clearly plays a role. A few years back, Russia’s Sex and the City magazine ranked Putin second in its annual “Sexy Rating” of Russian politicians. The opposition leader who ranked first? He was later sentenced to 15 days in jail for “disobeying police” at a rally.
Putin in the Tuva region of Siberia on Aug. 15, 2007.

Gaddy says that it’s impossible to comprehend Putin, King of All Sport without understanding the truly woeful condition of Soviet men. (Studies have estimated that over 40 percent of working-age Russian men die from drinking too much alcohol.) “The fact that Putin didn’t drink was hugely important for Russian women,” he says. “He was a great role model.” Gaddy explains: “So a lot of the woman that live in poor, rural areas and that fear murder by their drunken husbands … They look at Putin and they say, ‘If only I could have a guy like that.’”
Putin during a trip in the Western Sayan Mountains on Aug. 15, 2007.

AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Dmitry Astakhov, Presidential Press Service

Putin presents himself as the embodiment of Russian tradition—and his tough-guy attitude is a fundamental part of that. Essentially, Putin’s line is this, says Gaddy: “I am like you, a product of the Soviet Union. I’m not ashamed of it—quite proud of it, in fact—because it’s all our history, the good and the bad.”
Above, Putin carries archaeological finds he discovered while diving off the Taman Peninsula on Aug. 10, 2011.

AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Pool

The first rule of American politics is: Don’t put anything on your head, because, if you do, you will invariably end up looking anything but tough and there will invariably be a photographer nearby. Not so with Putin, who seems to have no qualms about donning all kinds of strange headgear. Gaddy has a simple explanation: “In Russia, you wear these goofy, enormous fur hats and that’s not seen as goofy—that’s seen as normal.”
Putin tests his Formula One skills outside St. Petersburg on Nov. 7, 2010.

AP Photo/RIA Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Pool

Gaddy remembers when, several years ago, Putin went to see the national championship game for a youth ice hockey league. After the game, Putin reportedly went up to talk to the teams and told them that he hadn’t learned to skate as a child because his family was too poor. “But,” Putin continued, “I pledge to you right now that I’m going to learn how to skate, and I’m going to come back here and practice with you guys.” And, sure enough, says Gaddy, “He comes back and he’s actually skating, he’s got on a uniform—the national team uniform—he’s got a stick, doing some shooting drills and so on.”
Above, Putin’s practice with teenagers on April 15, 2011.

AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel

After Putin’s practice with the kids, he joined an adult league and kept on playing ice hockey. For the last two or three years, he’s played in a pro-am charity game against N.H.L. Russia players. And who are the amateurs? “They’re guys like Putin and his defense minister,” says Gaddy. One of Gaddy’s friends, a deputy prime minister, has also picked up the game. “If you want to be one of the guys, if you want to be on the inside, you’ve got to strap on the skates and get out there,” he explains. “And you’ve got to be enthusiastic about it.”
Putin plays in a pro-am game in Sochi on Jan. 4, 2014.

AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Nikolsky, Presidential Press Service

Putin’s self-taught hockey prowess serves a political purpose, Gaddy says. “That was Putin’s way of saying, ‘Look, we can do this. We can be an international sports powerhouse. … And we better be.’”
Putin skis in Krasnaya Polyana ski resort on Feb. 20, 2007.

AP Photo/ Mikhail Metzel, File

Here Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev enjoy some après ski with former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2012 year at Putin’s favorite ski resort just a few miles from Sochi. Does Putin ever tackle the great outdoors with his closest international buddy, Silvio Berlusconi, like he did with Prince Albert? “I don’t think Berlusconi does that stuff,” Gaddy says. As for what Putin and Berlusconi do together, “God knows what goes on there.”